Humans are social creatures; we live in family groups, socialise with friends, and work with colleagues. Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar’s ‘social brain hypothesis’ suggests that brain size is directly related to social group size in mammals. The bigger the group, the bigger the brain. In this interview with Research Outreach, we find out how Dunbar developed his theory as well as his now famous ‘Dunbar’s number’
Robin Dunbar discusses his eponymous ‘Dunbar’s Number’, primates to people, and why size matters with social groups and evolution.
The researchers are especially interested in how our bodies maintain balance. Metabolic homeostasis, the fancy term for it, may have shaped more traits than we realize.
And as diets continue to change today, our ancient genetic choices could still be nudging us in new directions.
The study is published in the journal Cell Genomics.
Physicists at ETH Zurich have developed a lens that can transform infrared light into visible light by halving the wavelength of incident light. The study is published in Advanced Materials.
Lenses are the most widely used optical devices. Camera lenses or objectives, for example, produce a sharp photo or video by directing light at a focal point. The speed of evolution in the field of optics in recent decades is exemplified by the transformation of conventional bulky cameras into today’s compact smartphone cameras.
Even high-performance smartphone cameras still require a stack of lenses that often account for the thickest part of the phone. This size constraint is an inherent feature of classic lens design—a thick lens is crucial for bending light to capture a sharp image on the camera sensor.
Turbulence in nature refers to the complex, time-dependent, and spatially varying fluctuations that develop in fluids such as water, air, and plasma. It is a universal phenomenon that appears across a vast range of scales and systems—from atmospheric and oceanic currents on Earth, to interstellar gas in stars and galaxies, and even within jet engines and blood flow in human arteries.
Turbulence is not merely chaotic; rather, it consists of an evolving hierarchy of interacting vortices, which may organize into large-scale structures or produce coherent flow patterns over time.
In nuclear fusion plasmas, turbulence plays a crucial role in regulating the confinement of thermal energy and the mixing of fuel particles, thereby directly impacting the performance of fusion reactors. Unlike simple fluid turbulence, plasma turbulence involves the simultaneous evolution of multiple physical fields, such as density, temperature, magnetic fields, and electric currents.
Plant growth cycles, the migration of billions of animals, and even aspects of human culture—from harvest rituals to Japanese cherry blossom viewings—are dictated by these dominant rhythms.
The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed ancient galaxies that appear far too massive and mature for their age, challenging our current understanding of cosmic evolution. These galaxies, observed just 330 million years after the Big Bang, should be small and irregular. Instead, they are well-formed and massive, suggesting that something fundamental about our models of the early universe may be incomplete.
One radical theory proposes that our universe could be the interior of a black hole in a larger parent universe. In this model, the Big Bang was not an explosion in empty space but the moment matter collapsed into a black hole, creating a new cosmos inside. The event horizon of this black hole would act as a boundary, beyond which everything—including time—behaves differently from an outside perspective.
Recent observations also suggest that the universe might have a preferred axis, contradicting the assumption that the cosmos is isotropic. The surprising alignment of galaxies on a large scale hints at unknown forces or structures shaping the universe. If true, this could support the idea that our universe is not an isolated system but is influenced by a larger framework, possibly the structure of a black hole’s interior.
Some theories also suggest that black holes could generate new universes through a process called a “big bounce,” where extreme torsion at high densities prevents a singularity from forming. Instead of collapsing to an infinitely small point, matter could rebound, triggering expansion. If our universe formed in such a way, it could explain why physical constants seem fine-tuned for life—because only stable, self-sustaining black hole universes would persist.
A new study led by University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh geologist Timothy Paulsen and University of Colorado Boulder thermochronologist Jeff Benowitz advances the understanding of the geologic history of Transantarctic Mountains bedrock, with implications for understanding the evolution of landscapes lying beneath the ice sheets covering Antarctica.
The team of researchers analyzed the chemistry of mineral grains commonly found in igneous rocks, like granite, from the Transantarctic Mountains. The research team includes other scientists from the University of Arizona, St. Louis University, The Ohio State University, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The study was published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment has always been deeply misunderstood. In this article I’d like to explain how, if understood properly, it might shed new light on the mechanism by which consciousness evolved.
Schrödinger’s cat and schrödinger’s hat
The purpose of Schrödinger’s thought experiment was to highlight serious problems in the (then very new) “Copenhagen Interpretation” of Quantum Mechanics (CI). The CI was a bit of a botch-job, because the founders of QM had no idea how to “interpret” the strange new physics they had discovered. The CI says quantum systems remain in a superposition (a “smeared out” state where everything than can happen is somehow happening in parallel) until measured, but does not define what counts as a “measurement”, or why. Schrödinger always rejected this idea, and his thought experiment was intended to demonstrate why. He proposes a sealed box (so no “measurements” can take place), in which has been placed a cat, and a quantum source with a 50% probability of releasing poison. According to the CI, so long as the system inside the box remains “unmeasured”, the poison has both been released and not-released and therefore that cat is both dead and alive.
Re-examination of the presumed Cambrian fossil fish Anatolepis reveals previous misidentification of aglaspidid sensory structures as dentine, a vertebrate sensory tissue, showing it to be an arthropod, and shifting the origin of vertebrate hard tissues to the Middle Ordovician.
The origin of lithium (Li), the third element of the periodic table, has long been shrouded in mystery. This element, commonly found in cosmic rays as two stable isotopes, 6 Li and 7 Li, is crucial to understanding the origins of the universe and the evolution of its chemical elements.
In a recent study, an international team of researchers used the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) aboard the International Space Station to measure the cosmic-ray fluxes of 6 Li and 7 Li based on data accumulated from May 2011 to October 2023.
Based on information from over 2 million nuclei amassed across 12 years, the team formulated a hypothesis that strengthens the case for one possible origin of lithium while challenging another previously accepted explanation.
